What is the use of a recipe? A recipe is a teaching tool, a guide, a point of departure. Follow it exactly the first time you make the dish. As you make it again and again, you will change it, massage it to fit your own taste and aesthetic. Eventually it will become your own personal recipe - Jacques Pepin

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Empress of Eternity by L. E. Modesitt

Empress of Eternity is, perhaps, one of Modesitt's least inspired novels. I began to wonder about fifty pages in whether I was going to be able to finish it or not. The novel was a bit like Ringworld, by Niven, in that it involved scientists investigating a massive artifact created by an ancient civilization, a continent-spanning canal constructed of a material resistant to all forms of energy.

The action moves in short bursts, following the efforts of three teams, separated by thousands of years. Each small team belongs to a different type of society, all of them dealing with the challenge of climate change, from encroaching ice ages to expanding deserts. I think Modesitt had fun imagining different iterations of human political structure, but it left the reader a bit confused, all things considered. The finish was merely a deus ex machina ploy, and truly unsatisfying to me.

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About Me

A middle-aged fellow from the Northwest, who has at various times been employed as a mechanic, a chef, a technical writer, and an IT geek. I'm a fully addicted reader, mostly science fiction and fantasy, but will read whatever is available, when the monkey is on my back. I love travel, good food and riding twisty roads on my BMW.

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